


nobody bein' honest (i don't trust 'em anyway)

by Anonymous



Category: Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, M/M, Okay this is really really shitty but, i was listening to frank ocean and this happened, inspired by a song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22517074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: bucky barnes watches tony stark from halfway across the room.thoughts occur.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Kudos: 38
Collections: Anonymous





	nobody bein' honest (i don't trust 'em anyway)

**Author's Note:**

> okay I don’t know how long it’s been since I last posted a fic but,,, here? definitely, my writing style has changed since the last time I wrote any winteriron, and yes I’m back on my bullshit when it comes to angst. I’m just really enjoying the ‘iwnjnsje’ that is bucky barnes, plus, sebastian stan has been great lately and joining the trash disney crew that is john boyega and oscar isaac.
> 
> so. yeah. enjoy this i guess, it’s really messy and i’m still trying to get back to grips with my love for winteriron but!!! i had a lot of fun churning this out!! it’s rushed but it’s finished (barely)!! which is a lot more than i can say about other stuff i’ve written!!! anyway yeahhh, enjoy this and stay hydrated!!
> 
> \- xxx.

Bucky watched Tony from across the room. It wasn’t a change from how he normally watched Tony; half a world away, half a city away, half a room away.

Even in his bed, he still felt the distance between them. Maybe it was because they kept each other at arm's length to avoid getting hurt, maybe it was because they kept each other at arms length because they couldn’t admit they were already hurting.

There was a certain pleasure in watching the phases Tony Stark went through, the flickers of his face and his hands and his wrists as he talked and talked and talked to people he probably, most likely, most definitely, didn’t give a shit about. Board members and pandering assholes who called him _Mr. Stark_ and sneered at him when they thought he couldn’t see.

(Bucky, after days in the tower, had realised that Tony had eyes everywhere. He could always see, even if he wasn’t there. 

Nothing escaped him.)

There had been a passing moment, just as Steve turned away from the buffet table, locking eyes with Bucky, in which Tony had grinned, eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that was so obviously fake. It was disgusting.

He couldn’t judge though, not when he plastered on a fake face and fake accent and remembered fake memories. Even after Tony had looked him in the eye and called him out on his bullshit.

(“You don’t really got anybody being honest with you, even your family is hiding shit.” Bucky said, late one night. Or early morning. Whatever. Time meant _nothing_ in Tony’s lab. “I don’t understand why you’d expect me to be the first.”

Tony had hesitated, screw in hand, wires travelling into the planes of his palms. Sometimes, Bucky forget that man and machine could be one. Sometimes he forgot he was living testament to that, that his arm was metal.

“You’re right, I don’t know why I’d think you’d be honest with me. But Bucky, look, tell me you’re capable of hurting me in a way no one else has before, go on, tell me.” Tony had smiled slow and sweet and slightly sardonic. After a few beats his grin turned vicious. 

No response, yet just the response that Tony needed. “ _Liar.”_ )

Tony thought Bucky lacked honesty. Bucky, hesitantly, agreed. What was there to dispute? If lying was an art call him Vincent Van Gogh. He, unfortunately, did not have the same freedom as Van Gogh to cut off his ear.

No.

Bucky has to hear every insult and every remark and _god,_ it’s sickening to know that it’s liberating that people hate him. That people out there despise his existence, that people out there want him to die.

Tony would call it a distant form of self harm. Bucky would say it’s penance. Tony would agree, if tentatively, and laugh. He’d laugh until his lungs hurt and his mind went numb and Bucky started laughing too. Then they’d laugh together.

He’d grown tired of Steve’s saccharine words, of the gentle roll of his tongue over blunt syllables, of _“Bucky, they love you, they want you to stay, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”_

Well. If Bucky hadn’t known that Steve was a liar before, then well _damn,_ he certainly did now.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the gap in Tony’s conversation, in the smooth way he moved onto another person. Closer, but still half a room away from him.

“After a while,” Harley stated, “Doesn’t watching him get creepy?”

Bucky didn’t hate Harley. If anything, what he held for him was close to something like Love. Bucky didn’t doubt that he had love in his body, but sometimes when his bones felt more like a derelict house and his mind simply a vessel, he wondered if he bled out his entire supply of love dry, let it run into the cement floors of a Hydra cell. 

He wondered if scientists had carefully extracted it from him, marvelled at its purity.

He wondered if rich associates tipped a drop into their martinis and drank it.

He wondered and wondered, but what use was wondering, anyway?

Bucky shrugged in response to his question; Harley was a growing boy, he could understand desire. Harley was a growing boy, he knew what lust looked like in human form. Bucky trusted he knew the look in his eyes just like he knew his home. 

“I don’t think it’s fair that you get to see nirvana,” Harley continued, understanding the shrug for what it was. Atta boy. “I don’t think it’s fair that you gotta suffer, either.”

Bucky watched Tony let something brown and full drip into his throat, Adam’s Apple bobbing. He hoped it was gasoline, he hoped he was watching Bucky like Bucky was watching him.

Hope wasn’t useless. Hope had gotten him through half his days, across half a city, across half a country.

Hope had gotten him back to New York, back to Tony , back to a coffin he’d grown out of, back to a time he didn’t remember, back to a man he couldn’t love anymore.

Okay, so hope wasn’t useless, but that didn’t mean it didn’t have the potential to be a villain in his story.

Bucky _hoped_ Tony set himself alight on whatever he was pouring down his throat; he was sure it would be beautiful.


End file.
